Success celebrated at commencement

Posted: Friday, December 16, 2005

For more than 15 years, Ricky Byrd has had his eyes on the prize: A high-school diploma.

Moving back and forth across north Georgia to live with different family members, from his freshman year in Oconee County to Lithonia, through Tucker and Rockdale and back to Athens, it took Byrd almost eight years just to earn enough high school credits to graduate - but he never doubted he'd make it, eventually.

"It's something that I needed to finish," Byrd said of his education. "I started this in kindergarten, and it didn't seem right to start on it without finishing it."

Thursday night, on Byrd's 22nd birthday, he finally took his diploma in hand, transferred the tassel on his mortarboard and graduated from the Classic City Performance Learning Center, the Clarke County School District's non-traditional high school.

He participated in Thursday's winter commencement ceremony with 11 other classmates - four more students completed the requirements for graduation but didn't participate in the ceremony for various reasons, Principal Dan Hunter said. One of them received permission to wait until the spring ceremony in May, so that distant family members could visit and attend.

Thursday night's participants each took a moment to speak during the ceremony - a Classic City tradition that generally includes thanks to God, parents, friends and others who've supported the graduates, sometimes accompanied by tears.

The school, which opened its doors two-and-a-half years ago, targets dropouts and students who are in danger of dropping out; in the past, students have said it was the only thing that kept them in school or that it was their last chance at receiving a diploma. Many find that the school's flexible schedule allows them to continue to hold jobs while finishing up school coursework - classes are held from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays - and the open campus allows them to come and go when they're not in class.

The school also uses a computerized curriculum as part of its teaching materials, which allows each student to move at his or her own pace.

"I didn't know what to do, until I heard about Classic City," Byrd said Thursday morning, as the upcoming graduates practiced for the ceremony in the school's gymnasium.

"It's a wonderful environment - it made me a people person. Before, I was never able to speak up and voice my problems. It was hard to make friends - and you knew people weren't going to be in your life very long, so you're like, 'I can feel it coming again.'

"Being in a school with fewer people helped. I was never comfortable until I came here."

This term's graduates include two students heading to universities - including the first Classic City student accepted to the University of Georgia - and several who plan to begin classes at Athens Technical College in January. Byrd hopes to be one of those students at Athens Tech - he must pass a final portion of the college's entrance exam. Eventually, he wants to own his own business, he said.

"You've truly reached a bar today, by achieving your goals, and I would urge you to set that bar higher," commencement speaker state Sen. Brian Kemp, R-Athens, told the grads. "It's good not only for you and your family, but for the entire state. The sky is the limit."

The school already has a full enrollment for the term that begins in January - 105 students in the daytime program and 30 more in the evening program, Hunter said.